Halston, 1983

While diffusion lines no longer erode the luster of fashion’s gilded enamel and are now a part of its culture, they were the beginning of the end for Halston. When the designer launched a mass market line for Texas retailer JC Penney his main collection was dropped by Bergdorf Goodman, the very store that initiated his career. From then on it would only be a downward spiral. The next year he was fired (largely attributed to his excessive drug use) and the company he founded in 1968 entered a bizarre purgatory, suffocating the designer’s immense creative and technical legacy. In 2010, despite countless attempts to escape, it is still so far from the paradise it once defined.